Impatient
by lulamae-golightly
Summary: Dana Scully hates being unsure. A peek into her teenage life, as a companion to "Four Words".


**A/N: Thank you for all the response the teenage-Mulder fic got. I decided to write a fic about teenage Scully as a companion piece to it. **

**Scully's boyfriend in this piece comes from a deleted scene from the pilot (I assume we've all seen it). We didn't see a lot of him, so I had to interpret what he would be like myself.**

**The X Files doesn't belong to me.**

Junior/Senior prom posters were plastered on what seemed like every wall of the high school. "THIS SATURDAY" they exclaimed in colorful letters. That was three days away. Everyone was excited, except the ones who claimed school dances were lame and for the masses and pointless and expensive.

Dana Scully already had her dress, knee-length, form-fitting, a deep red color. She planned to wear it with tights and Doc Martens. She didn't care for the typical sparkly type dresses she always saw in the mall stores; she had bought hers at a thrift store. She had a date, too, her boyfriend Ethan. He had not formally asked her, but they had been dating for almost all of junior year, of course he would take her to the dance.

The last class of the day ended and she made her way to the bleachers, where her friends and Ethan liked to talk after school. Her friend Joshua gave her a cigarette and lit it for her. She didn't really _like_ to smoke, but it gave her something to do with her hands and everyone else did it anyway. "Where's Ethan?" she asked.

"Dunno," Joshua shrugged. The redhead slipped out of her leather jacket. "Did you get a nose piercing?"

"Yeah, I did it myself," she turned to show him.

"God, what did your mom say?"

"She told me I was on my way to becoming a human pincushion." Dana chuckled a little thinking of it. "I think she's given up trying to stop me at this point."

"You are wild," he teased her. Ethan walked up, wearing a polo shirt and light blue jeans. She ran to greet him, and Joshua inwardly mused at how different they looked together; Dana's red hair compared to Ethan's light brown, her dark, punk-rocker clothes compared to his clean-cut, school-type attire. Dana's parents loved him, and wished she would match him in her clothing style and attitude. Dana was good at school, especially science, and she wasn't mean or bitchy or anything like that.

But she was trying to find herself. And it was hard. It was something she struggled with alone, something she didn't tell anyone else about. She didn't know what she wanted and how she felt about most things. She knew what her parents wanted for her, but she wasn't sure if their want and her want matched up. Most days she felt tired, confused, unsure of what to do and what to think.

And then there was Ethan, who was halfheartedly kissing her now. She liked him, but there had always been a distance, a wall, between them. They had begun dating because he had asked her to homecoming and kissed her after, and the Monday afterward, she proposed dating. It was nice for the first few months, but she could soon see him detaching himself. She often wondered if it was all a mistake to begin with, but she couldn't leave him. She had seen him when he was angry, and he got very vocal.

"How are you?" she asked as they broke apart from their cold, empty kiss.

"I'm alright. Can I talk to you alone for a second?"

She knew he was going to ask her to prom. She was excited; maybe this could bring the spark back. Maybe this could be good for them. "Of course," she said. She took his hand, but he pulled his away. It hurt more than Dana would expect. He led her under the bleachers, sitting down on a pipe.

"So..." he began, hesitant.

"So?"

"It's time to end this." he said quickly. Dana couldn't respond, only furrow her brow. "We don't like this. I don't think we should stay together."

"We don't like this? How do you know? Why do you think I don't like this? Maybe I do. I love being with you."

"Dana," Ethan sighed. He didn't elaborate.

"You don't think about me. You think you are by saying 'we', but you're not."

"You know, I don't want to talk about it. This just isn't working out anymore. Grow up, Dana. Dress better. Get over the punk-rock image and maybe I'll consider it again. Call me when you get it together." he left.

Dana wanted to cry, but nothing came. She sucked angrily on her cigarette, taking a long drag until it ran out and she threw it to the ground. She had it together. She had all A's, she had a job, she had friends. And a boy had just broken up with her because of how she dressed. She didn't know whether to be sad or to be mad at herself.

It was one less thing to be stressed over, though, right?

* * *

><p>She knew Ethan never loved her. She knew he dated her because he thought he could fix her; make her like him. But she didn't want to be like him.<p>

It was prom night, and Dana was sitting on her porch in her dress. She heard footsteps behind her, then a figure sit down next to her. "Hey," Missy said. "What's wrong? Why aren't you at prom? I thought it started in ten minutes."

"I don't have anyone to go with."

"What? I thought Ethan..."

"Not together anymore."

"Oh, God, Danes," her sister gave her a side hug. "Honestly, he was a douche with his stupid button-up shirts and slacks and stuff. He didn't deserve you."

Dana laughed; she could always count on her older sister to make her feel better. "I dunno...I shouldn't feel so bad about it, but I do. I just...it's so hard sometimes, Missy. I want to be this, but mom and dad want me to be that, and I'm not sure about most things...you know what I mean?"

"Yeah. There's a name for what you're feeling. It's called 'being a teenager'. You're seventeen, Danes."

"I thought I'd have it figured out now. I mean, I'm almost a legal adult."

"Slow down there, cowgirl. I'm in my twenties. I'm still not sure of what I want some days. It's a slow process." Melissa gave her sister another squeeze and a reassurance that everything would be alright, and left.

Dana sighed. She hated being unsure; hated it more than anything. It distressed her. She loved facts and rules, despite her punk image. That was why she connected with academics. She hated to admit this, but she wished she had someone; a friend, someone she had a connection with, to sympathize with her. Her sister was gone at college for most of the time, and even the friends she hung around with at school were just that, strictly school friends. She was so alone most of the time.

But it was what she was used to.

* * *

><p>She fell asleep in her dress with her makeup still on, feeling incredibly sad for reasons she did not know.<p>

**A/N: We all had times as a teenager when we felt sad for no reason, right? I tried to capture the whole unsureness and emotional part of that age in this fic...let me know what you thought. It was fun writing about these two as teenagers and maybe I'll do it again sometime.**

**-Lulmae**


End file.
